Many hair shampoo compositions provide acceptable cleaning but provide little or no styling benefits, e.g. body, hold, stiffness. To realize such benefits, separate cleaning and styling products are often used.
Recently, hair shampoo compositions have been developed which can provide cleaning performance with some styling benefits, all from a single product. Many of these products contain styling polymers in a compatible shampoo base. To prepare such products. styling polymers can be dissolved in an organic solvent and then incorporated into the shampoo base. The organic solvent thereafter helps disperse the styling polymer in the shampoo composition, and also helps enhance deposition of the styling polymer onto hair. The use of these solvents, however, can sometimes contribute undesirable odors to the finished product or otherwise present formulation problems, e.g. compatibility with other materials in the shampoo composition.
To minimize the use of these organic solvents, latex polymers rather than dissolved polymers have been employed as a means of incorporating styling polymers into a shampoo base. Latex polymer systems are stable dispersions, typically colloidal dispersions, of water-insoluble polymer particles in a continuous aqueous phase. As such, there is little or no organic solvent to contribute undesirable odors or to otherwise present incompatibilities with other materials in the shampoo composition. Without the organic solvent, however, deposition of the latex particles onto hair, which is essential for allowing the styling polymer to set and form a film onto the surface of hair, is reduced. Attempts at improving latex deposition included adding latex deposition aids, e.g., cationic polymers, and/or by increasing the shampoo concentration of the latex polymer.
The foregoing considerations involving styling shampoo compositions and latex polymer systems indicates that there is a continuing need to identify latex polymer shampoos with enhanced latex deposition profiles and styling performance. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide such compositions, and further to provide such compositions that require minimal or reduced levels of latex polymer to achieve the desired latex deposition profile and styling performance.